New Apple patent suggests iPhones could warn against spam calls one day

A new Apple patent could finally give iPhone owners some relief from spam calls by automatically recognizing a fake call and warning users accordingly, via AppleInsider.

As the patent claims describe, Apple’s system would try to analyze the technical data of incoming calls to determine whether or not they’re legitimate calls or masked, forwarded internet calls that are hiding behind a spoofed caller ID. Once a call has been identified, the system would then display a warning to the user that the incoming call might not be legitimate.

Spam call blocking is an area where Google is miles ahead of Apple. Pixel phones already do their best to flag spam calls as soon as they come in. And Google is adding another layer to the Pixel 3 that will let Google Assistant actually answer and screen questionable calls for you, transcribing the response in real time and making it easy to block and report the number for spam.

Apple’s system described here isn’t on the same level as what Google’s call-screening service will provide, but it’s far better than what iPhone users currently have, which is trusting (or paying extra) to their phone carrier to detect spammy calls for them.

Again, this is just a patent, so there’s no guarantee that Apple is actually going to add this to an iPhone device. But given that it feels like spam calls are only getting worse — earlier this week, a Nobel prize winner ignored the call notifying him of his win because he thought it was a spam call — anything the smartphone maker can do to offer some relief to users will be appreciated.